


Gravitational Constant

by facetofcathy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-27
Updated: 2011-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-17 07:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetofcathy/pseuds/facetofcathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a fic I started writing for Sherlock Flashfic, but it wrote itself right out of the theme.</p>
<p>Discusses alcoholism and murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravitational Constant

They are stood there, the three of them, like pillars—or pillocks—while Sherlock swoops over the body, coat flapping like bat wings. Holding the apex of their little triangle is Lestrade, arms crossed over his chest, he stares at the body in accusation. Its crime, clearly, more the necessity for Sherlock to be in attendance than having suffered a violent death. Donovan is opposite John and doing what she always does, glaring at Sherlock as if daring him to be even more the thing that annoys her most in the world. Not a dare John would make. He knows Sherlock could make good on it without effort. And then there's John, risen from his own examination of the victim to take his place as the third silent observer.

Sherlock stops moving for an instant and John feels, ridiculously, yes, but he feels that he's at risk of a lurching into a stumble and falling to the wet pavement. Sherlock starts up moving again, and John feels the ground steadier under his feet.

He'd seen a patient earlier that day who'd been in the surgery going on a dozen times all told. The fellow couldn't stop noticing his heart beating, and it was doing his head in, as he'd said to John plaintively. As long as he'd gone on not really knowing that his heart was in there beating away, he'd been fine, but now he was all pulled out of alignment, knowing it was there, feeling it. Not being able to stop noticing.

Sherlock paces, circling the body and the bloodstain that sits in counterpoint a few feet away. That bloodstain shouldn't be there, or else the body shouldn't be _there_. One of them is wrong, not that John can deduce which or why or how, but something is off. Deduction isn't his department. His department is to examine the body and then watch while Sherlock goes over the same ground. Sherlock turns and his pacing winds counter clockwise. There's no point talking to him when he's like this, John knows, so he waits.

Sherlock keeps pacing, first clockwise, then widdershins, winding the world forward then backward in time. But his motion is all illusion, miles of walking going nowhere. From Sherlock's point of view, he might as well be standing still with Lestrade and Donovan and John the ones spinning round him in ceaseless orbit.

Harry'd had a little model of the solar system when they were children. She'd let John turn the handle sometimes and the fancifully huge, blue Earth and white Moon and all the other planets rendered in improbable colours would spin round the yellow plastic sun. He'd used to sneak into her room to play with it sometimes until she'd caught him at it. She'd hidden it away somewhere, never let him see it again. It's possible she was jealous that he'd been enjoying himself without her there to watch.

She'd once stopped speaking to him for two years. He'd been flush with the success of passing his exams, and he'd got up the nerve to tell her not to show up for lunch if she couldn't come sober. He'd felt adrift at first when she'd cut him off. He'd landed up in the Army where they'd kept him moving, and then she'd started showing up everywhere sober. The Army eventually set him down in Wiltshire, and she'd let him out of Coventry.

He'd never got used to it, Harry being sober. He'd known what to do when she was drinking, what to say, all the things not to say. He wondered if Clara had the same problem, but he wasn't fool enough to ask. If he really wanted to know, Sherlock could likely tell him.

"Sherlock," Lestrade says. He sounds tetchy, and he's not as gifted as John or Donovan at the silent, motionless spinning. He always seems to want to exert his own pull.

"Yes, yes, Detective Inspector. I'm off." Sherlock ducks under the yellow police tape and strides off down the street.

John sets off to follow, not trying to catch up, just keeping Sherlock in sight. Donovan nearly does too, freezing again when Lestrade's voice cuts through the night.

"Sherlock!"

"Text me when you find the other body," Sherlock calls without turning around.

He disappears around the corner, but John expects he'll dawdle enough for John to catch up. He won't want to pay for the taxi himself.


End file.
